270. Revolutionary Wealth
I am shocked that I can be turned on by... a man. The fact that he's 77 years old adds to the shock.
I'm turned on intellectually, that is, by the latest book (Revolutionary Wealth) written by one of my favorite intellectuals -- Alvin Toffler.
Unlike so many authors, Toffler's writing is crisp yet witty and imbued with obvious passion. (I devoured his previous books a few years ago: Future Shock, The Third Wave, Powershift and Creating a New Civilization).
Unlike Thomas Friedman (author of the best-seller The World is Flat), who is a reporter skilled at telling engaging stories, Toffler is an intellectual who can actually guide you to understand the deep, underlying causes BEHIND those stories.
One of Toffler's main messages is that about $50 trillion worth of value is being created ("prosumed") by people all over the world, yet all this value is invisible and undetectable to economists. As a result, we neglect to manage that value profitably.
One (feeble, I think) attempt to capture that value is the following website: www.thisishowyoudoit.com
Like many so-called Web 2.0 companies, it seeks to leverage the content created by users in order to create a viable business model and make money.
Of course, not everybody has the drive, the energy or the motivation to start a website like that in order to generate extra income.
However, what we all have which is of value, is all the knowledge we carry between our ears.
The problem for most people is: How do I package my knowledge and slap a price tag on it?
An easier question might be: How much would you charge a person to sit down with you and pick your brain, for one whole hour?
(In my case, the price is $100, and that hour spent with me to pick my business brain is a solution I call "the 60-minute CEO solution." The client would bring all the relevant documentation (business plan, marketing plan, brochure, website strategy, etc.) and I would review everything in 60 minutes, as well as provide strategic advice and implementation templates, etc. to the client.)
The amount of money you would charge for one hour during which you share everything that you know, is what I call the "magic number."
If you can't come up with that number, and justify it to someone who's interested in knowing what you know -- then I'm afraid you haven't yet entered the Knowledge Economy.
In the new Knowledge Economy, people get paid for what they know, not for what they do.
I understand why most people will, at first, strongly resist this notion that a person can get paid just by sharing what he/she knows. Usually, common sense tells us that we have to DO something in order to get paid.
But that common sense belongs to the Industrial Era, whereas we now live in the Information Age.
People who keep denying the economic power of knowledge, are simply leaving money on the table. They are typically people who hang on to the status quo and refuse to see that our society and indeed our economy -- as well as how companies create value today -- has dramatically changed.
We have, as Toffler wrote, entered the age of revolutionary wealth.
People who read Toffler's Revolutionary Wealth book are incredibly ahead of people who don't heed this brilliant intellectual's advice.
I'm turned on intellectually, that is, by the latest book (Revolutionary Wealth) written by one of my favorite intellectuals -- Alvin Toffler.
Unlike so many authors, Toffler's writing is crisp yet witty and imbued with obvious passion. (I devoured his previous books a few years ago: Future Shock, The Third Wave, Powershift and Creating a New Civilization).
Unlike Thomas Friedman (author of the best-seller The World is Flat), who is a reporter skilled at telling engaging stories, Toffler is an intellectual who can actually guide you to understand the deep, underlying causes BEHIND those stories.
One of Toffler's main messages is that about $50 trillion worth of value is being created ("prosumed") by people all over the world, yet all this value is invisible and undetectable to economists. As a result, we neglect to manage that value profitably.
One (feeble, I think) attempt to capture that value is the following website: www.thisishowyoudoit.com
Like many so-called Web 2.0 companies, it seeks to leverage the content created by users in order to create a viable business model and make money.
Of course, not everybody has the drive, the energy or the motivation to start a website like that in order to generate extra income.
However, what we all have which is of value, is all the knowledge we carry between our ears.
The problem for most people is: How do I package my knowledge and slap a price tag on it?
An easier question might be: How much would you charge a person to sit down with you and pick your brain, for one whole hour?
(In my case, the price is $100, and that hour spent with me to pick my business brain is a solution I call "the 60-minute CEO solution." The client would bring all the relevant documentation (business plan, marketing plan, brochure, website strategy, etc.) and I would review everything in 60 minutes, as well as provide strategic advice and implementation templates, etc. to the client.)
The amount of money you would charge for one hour during which you share everything that you know, is what I call the "magic number."
If you can't come up with that number, and justify it to someone who's interested in knowing what you know -- then I'm afraid you haven't yet entered the Knowledge Economy.
In the new Knowledge Economy, people get paid for what they know, not for what they do.
I understand why most people will, at first, strongly resist this notion that a person can get paid just by sharing what he/she knows. Usually, common sense tells us that we have to DO something in order to get paid.
But that common sense belongs to the Industrial Era, whereas we now live in the Information Age.
People who keep denying the economic power of knowledge, are simply leaving money on the table. They are typically people who hang on to the status quo and refuse to see that our society and indeed our economy -- as well as how companies create value today -- has dramatically changed.
We have, as Toffler wrote, entered the age of revolutionary wealth.
People who read Toffler's Revolutionary Wealth book are incredibly ahead of people who don't heed this brilliant intellectual's advice.
posted by Super Peter at 11:57 PM
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